336 
SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION 
[June 
gradually. One may well wonder how such a phenomenon 
is possible. In the middle of a period of placid calm and 
out of a clear sky there suddenly rushed upon one this 
volume of comparatively warm air; it has come and gone 
like the whirlwind. 
Whence comes it and whither goeth ? 
Went round the bergs after lunch on ski — splendid 
surface and quite a good light. 
We are now getting good records with the tide gauge 
after a great deal of trouble. Day has given much of his 
time to the matter, and after a good deal of discussion has 
pretty well mastered the principles. We brought a self- 
recording instrument from New Zealand, but this was 
passed over to Campbell. It has not been an easy matter 
to manufacture one for our own use. The wire from the 
bottom weight is led through a tube filled with paraffin 
as in Discovery days, and kept tight by a counter weight 
after passage through a block on a stanchion rising 6 feet 
above the floe. 
In his first instrument Day arranged for this wire to 
pass around a pulley, the revolution of which actuated 
the pen of the recording drum. This should have been 
successful but for the difficulty of making good mechanical 
connection between the recorder and the pulley. Backlash 
caused an unreliable record, and this arrangement had to 
be abandoned. The motion of the wire was then made 
to actuate the recorder through a hinged lever, and this 
arrangement holds, but days and even weeks have been 
lost in grappling the difficulties of adjustment between 
the limits of the tide and those of the recording drum ; 
